Gunpowder made high thin walls useless, so the sixteenth century gave Gýmeš a big trapezoidal tower and a round tower at the entrance, built to carry artillery and to withstand it. The danger was real: in the autumn of 1663 the Ottomans captured the star fortress at Nové Zámky, south of Nitra, and made it the seat of a province — the northernmost the empire ever held in Central Europe. Gýmeš was refitted again after that, with artillery bastions on the southern side, where the ridge is easiest to climb. A castle is not a building that was finished once; it is a building that kept being rewritten by whatever weapon was newest.Pušný prach urobil z vysokých tenkých múrov zbytočnosť, a tak v 16. storočí pribudla na Gýmeši veľká lichobežníková veža a pri vstupe valcová bašta – stavané na delá aj proti nim. Nebezpečenstvo bolo skutočné: na jeseň 1663 dobyli Turci pevnosť Nové Zámky južne od Nitry a urobili z nej sídlo provincie, najsevernejšej v dejinách Osmanskej ríše. Hrad po tom znova prestavali a z južnej strany, kde sa naň dá najľahšie vyjsť, dostal delové bašty. Hrad nie je stavba, ktorú raz dokončili – je to stavba, ktorú stále prepisovala najnovšia zbraň.
